In a different section of the dream megan called Orlando Bloom a coyote.

Had one of those dreams last night where the same events play out repeatedly, in multiple versions. It's hard to grasp the essential narrative, slippery as it is, but I'll try.

 

I was a thief. Con man, tomb raider, professional ne'er-do-well. I had attracted the ire of an old mustachioed paladin as I was attempting to burglarize a demon's lair that he was assaulting. I assured the old man that the demon was either long dead or not there; it had not been seen coming and going in many an age.

 

Boy, was I wrong.

 

In the course of the battle, after it had wounded the paladin (I was mostly staying out of the line of fire grabbing everything interesting and not nailed down), I found a frozen dagger in a glass bottle. I figured that meant it was a magic weapon. Now, the demon seemed proof to all weapons thus far, even the paladin's holy sword, so figuring I had nothing to lose except my life and that was likely anyway, I broke the bottle and threw the dagger.

 

It punched through demonscale like it wasn't there and killed the demon instantly.

 

I was pleased about this.

 

In one version of the dream, the paladin died. In another version I liked better, he warned me to get the hell out of this cursed den of iniquity, but declined to force or arrest me, since I had saved his life, and left.

 

Massive demons' lairs with active traps and servitors are too big to loot on your own. So I called my friends over for a looting party.

 

These people, actually people I have played D & D with in real life, in the dream proved to be a mage, a faerie warlock, a con man, and a ranger. As we raided, we found far more riches than a demon of the calibre I had seen should have... and yet, no sign of other inhabitants, and its unholy name monogrammed on the towels (er, engraved in runes over the doorframes, but whatever).

 

We realized it had been a greater demon while we were eating its food, in the dining hall; and a pit fiend of some kind came demanding entrance to investigate the passing of its colleague. My con man friend, cool as a cucumber, unlocked the door and invited the thing in for dinner, cheerful, confident, and subtly hostile. Assuming we were actually competent and planning to ambush and kill it; it left.

 

At which point my warlock friend realized that a normal magic dagger like I described would not be sufficient to punch through the armor of a fiend like that.

 

But demonflesh, lore said, could always pierce demonflesh. A particularly obnoxious gremlin capable of possessing, animating, or transforming into small objects had been imprisoned in that bottle. And by letting it out, I had bound it to me.

 

When I actually met the needy, demanding, complaining, reflexively mischievous creature who would from that point forward be my constant companion, I was less than thrilled.

 

Oh well. At least I got otter-shaped figurines of wondrous power out of it.